


You Better Run

by suddenlyGoats



Series: Transcendence Fics [8]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 10:09:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 17,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14616111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suddenlyGoats/pseuds/suddenlyGoats
Summary: Deep within the land of the Fae, a horn sounds. Hounds bound past. The Wild Hunt has begun.Deep within the starlit void between worlds, an agent of the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron starts a mission. It’s far more personal than anyone suspects.Deep within the forests of the planet Olofi, a group of survivors monitors the local ley lines apprehensively. Something is coming.Deep within an ordinary suburban house, the demon Alcor sits upright. Something is wrong.And deep within the middle of it all, a young Mizar will have her revenge.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place in the Falling Star AU, aka the one where Mabel, and not her reincarnations, was a god of chaos. You don't have to know more about the AU than that to read this - it is not a story about Mabel.

_Keep moving and don’t look back._

 

The darkness was thick and heavy; to go through it was more like moving through water than air. It was warm, like being under a thick blanket. And like being under a thick blanket after the morning’s first alarm, it felt like it would be so easy to just relax and slip back to where she just was.

 

The weight of the darkness dragged back her thoughts as well as her body. Her mind was filled with fog. The only thing that penetrated it was her mantra.

 

 _Keep moving,_ she thought, _and don’t look back._

 

It was easier thought than done, which was an impressive feat considering how hard it was to even think it.

 

There was a pinprick of light in the distance. The only point of difference in the vast darkness.

 

It looked so far away.

 

She would never be able to reach it, would she?

 

She would never be able to do… whatever it was that she was trying to do, would she?

 

Was it really worth all this struggle?

 

It didn’t matter, did it?

 

She should just give up.

 

Let the darkness drag her back.

 

Just let go.

 

It would be okay.

 

She didn’t _really_ care about him.

 

No **.**

 

**NO!**

 

She _did_ care about him. She cared about him _so much_. And it didn’t matter how hard it was. She was going to find him.

 

She just had to Keep Moving. She just had to Not Look Back.


	2. Chapter 2

“May I have your attention, sir.” The voice cut through the white noise of the ship’s engines like a sword through jello; easily, impossible to ignore, and just a little bit rude.

 

He turned around. Behind him, standing rigid as a board, was a young adult human in the uniform of the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron. They looked deadly serious.

 

“Can I… help you?” he asked. He really hoped that they had a simple question and would be on their way. He didn’t want the attention of any authority figure, even if nothing he had done should be of interest to the TPAES. Or more specifically, nothing he had done yet, or was planning on doing, should be of interest to the TPAES.

 

“My name is Lieutenant Grendenthwich, she/her. There is reason to believe that there is a conspiracy to alter the timeline by killing you prematurely. You are to be under my protection for the imminent future.”

 

“What?” He stepped backwards. “There must be some sort of mistake. I’m a nobody. Why would anyone want me dead?”

 

“Because they are under the impression that your death will alter the timeline in a way that would be beneficial for them,” the time agent said. “The ‘why’ of the matter is largely irrelevant. It could easily have to do with something that you haven’t done yet. It is possible that you do not remain a nobody forever.”

 

“Well, you’re from the future. You know what happens, right?” He leaned forward eagerly. “Do I become a big shot politician or something?”

 

“It is not a guarantee that any agent from the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron is from the future. We are just as likely to be called in from the past, or assigned to a case that takes place in our present.”

 

“Well that’s meaningless.” He crossed his arms. “Are you from the future or not?”

 

“That is not information you need to know, sir.”

 

“Well, I at least deserve to know why someone is trying to kill me. You have to know that, right? It would be part of your briefing or whatever. They assigned a Lieutenant to my case, so I’ve gotta be someone important, right?”

 

“You do not need to know why someone might be trying to kill you.” It was slightly impressive how little Grendenthwich moved. She talked like she was a character in a cheaply made cartoon. “It is possible that you become a person of importance. It is also possible that you remain largely insignificant outside of a butterfly effect that would occur if you died at an incorrect point in the timeline,” Grendenthwich said briskly. “Try not to draw any conclusions that would drastically alter your behavior.”

 

“Would it kill you to be a little more friendly? It’s going to be hard to get along with you if you keep this up.”

 

“It’s not my job to get along with you, sir. It’s my job to keep you alive.”


	3. Chapter 3

Chiddle was, quite frankly, starting to get more than a little exhausted. They had started tromping around through the purple foliage of the woods hours ago and they still weren’t sure where they were going. The energy signatures that they were trying to follow were wildly fluctuating, which was, admittedly, expected - they wouldn’t be out here if things were calm - but was still frustrating. 

 

They were starting to see more spikes of energy clumped closer together, though, which was very promising.

 

The ground beneath Chiddle was starting to look a bit like an old, worn path. The faint outline of stones could be just barely made out under the thick layer of dirt. Momentarily swiping aside the abnormal energy measuring program from their screen, they did a quick web search and confirmed that the area had never had any official development. It did, however, have some severe hazardous entity warnings. Neither one of these facts was surprising, but they didn’t help with the knot that was forming in Chiddle’s guts. 

 

They shouldn’t be here. 

 

Obviously they shouldn’t be here: they had to cut a hole in a fence to even get where they were. But this was different. People fenced off all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons. Most of which, in Chiddle’s opinion, were pointless and dumb. This, however, was someplace that no one should be. This was  **Their** territory. 

 

The trees were growing closer together here, to thick to walk between. Chiddle felt funneled down the path. 

 

They breathed deeply. 

 

There were none of  **Them** coming. Chiddle would know. Or at least, their computer would know, and would start screaming at them as it had been programed to do. The barrier was being passed through but it was by someone smaller than  **Them.** It would be fine. It would be  _ fine. _

 

Okay yes, there were many things that obeyed  **Them** that were small. But nothing had come through this area in years; it would be strange of  **Them** to suddenly take an interest in it. 

 

Then again, when was  **Their** behavior anything other than strange? 

 

Chiddle could  possibly probably deal with a minion. They knew this plane pretty well. 

 

They reached the end of the path. 

 

The trees were so close together here that they were functionally a wall, encircling a clearing. In the center of the clearing was a well. Chiddle knew what it was because it looked exactly like a well from the storybooks that they read when they were small. It was a circle of gray stones that would have been about waist high on a human of average height, with a wooden roof that a rope hung down from. Presumably there was a bucket at the end of the rope. Chiddle did not see any sort of cranking mechanism, but had never encountered a functional well or thought about wells long enough to realize that one should be there. 

 

The only way out of the clearing was the way that they had come from. 

 

Well, that and the well, if they were feeling especially masochistic. 

 

Checking their screen, they saw that energy was pulsating out of the well in waves. Even without their screen they could feel it slightly. There was a strangeness to the air, like the air pressure was oscillating between high and low.

 

There was no question that something was coming through. 

 

Chiddle rested their fingers on their gun. It was very special, firing cold iron bullets rather than the energy pulses of most modern weapons. They did not own it legally. It was pretty much impossible to get a permit for something that fired physical matter at lethal speeds, which was a little silly considering how easy it was to modify energy weapons to become deadly, but the law was what it was. Specifically, it was completely irrelevant to anything Chiddle cared about. 

 

Chiddle took a few deep breaths. 

 

A hand reached out of the well, although ‘hand’ might have been an overly generous term. It looked like a hand from a child's drawing, containing things more like four thin sticks than fingers. 

 

The terminological accuracy aside, one thing was obvious. 

 

Someone, or something, was coming out of the well.


	4. Chapter 4

The light was overwhelming now, swallowing up the darkness in its bright beams.

 

Her thoughts felt clearer now. She was Aperture. She was going to find her biological predecessor. And then she was going to -

 

She gasped slightly as a wave of cold struck her hand.

 

She had reached the light.

 

She had made it.

 

She was free.

 

For now.


	5. Chapter 5

Chiddle’s grip tightened on their gun. It was ~~possibly~~ probably fine. They probably didn’t need to shoot anything.

 

They sure as hell weren’t willing to take any chances though.

 

A figure slowly pulled themself out of the well.

 

The figure looked highly peculiar, even by Chiddle’s standards. They looked a bit like a papercraft. Like someone tried to make a doll without being sure what a person looked like. There was a circle of blackness with a small white spot in the middle, which might have been a hole, or might have just been a dark spot, and protruding from it were lines connected to each other by arcs, like someone chopped up a bunch of circles. The largest segment was a circular sector whose arc faced down to the ground, sort of like a dress, with thin legs coming out of the bottom. Two shorter sectors were on either side of what Chiddle was calling the main body, like sleeves. Finally, two lines, each as long as those in the “dress,” shot upwards, the arc that connected them only doing so about a third up their length, leaving the remaining two thirds to stick up independently, like antennae.

 

“He - Hello there,” Chiddle said, carefully controlling their breathing. This was fine. _This was FINE._

 

Aperture stared at them. They looked like the result of an especially determined gardener trying to make a sculpture of a goblin. They were a fairly normal size for a goblin, about her height and about as half again as long as she was tall. On their head, mostly covered by a thick lilac hat, where most goblins had short stiff hairs, small, densely packed branches protruded, some of them bearing leaves. Their carapace looked like smooth bark, and their belly, which on normal goblins was covered in soft-looking hairs, was mossy. Their caterpillar-like lower section looked fairly normal, outside of the pale mushrooms that were growing off of it, and their two tails looked like vines with flowers at the end rather than the normal pseudo-feathers. The hat they wore was paired with a scarf and they wore nothing else.

 

Chiddle was saying some more things, and Aperture was paying attention to none of them. She was too focused on their appearance, on the feeling deep in her gut that she got when looking at them. They were one of **Them** . Or more likely, one of **Their** thralls. There was pretty much no other possible explanation for their presence.

 

Aperture looked around. The only apparent way away from here was being blocked by the person who was definitely a thrall.

 

She had to get out. **They** would be following her.

 

But she didn’t know the capabilities of the thrall before her, outside of, apparently, the utter inability to stop talking. It was astonishing how many words the thrall had to say. It just blathered on like she would actually fall for anything one of **Their** honeyed tongues had to say.

 

If it was resorting to words that might mean that it didn’t have anything substantial to come at her with.

 

Or that it just found talking more amusing than physical force.

 

Best to be cautious.

 

“Get out of my way!” she shouted. The words felt harsh to say, demanding her to acknowledge just how long it had been since she last spoke aloud. “I will not be taken back to **Them** so soon!”

 

“Whoa there,” Chiddle said, putting all six of their hands up in front of them, out of immediate reach of the gun that hung at their side. “No one here wants that. You’re -”

 

“You expect me to believe that you’re not going to capture me?” she snarled. “You think you can pacify me with all that flowery speech? Just how dumb do you think I am?”

 

“You think my speech is flowery?” Chiddle’s mouthparts clicked together. “I don’t think my speech is flowery. I make an effort to talk plainly. Clearness is essential for comprehension, after all.”

 

“Who cares about that‽” Aperture’s arms rotated around her center, ending next to her antennae. “Why would you ever think that that is what matters right now‽”

 

Chiddle hunched into themself sheepishly. “Well, I care about it. I know that sometimes I can be a little hard to follow and it’s important to me that people understand each other.”

 

Her arms lowered again. “Like I need to follow your words to understand you.”

 

“I really don’t think you understand me like you think you do,” Chiddle said. “Or... at all. I think that it’s entirely possible that you may have jumped to some highly inaccurate conclusions –”

 

“Oh, I understand you perfectly. You want to take me back to where I belong.”

 

“Could you please stop interrupting me? I understand you’re scared and upset but that’s really rude and slightly hurtful.” Chiddle was avoiding anything that might be interpreted as eye contact with Aperture, which ended up being looking entirely away from her for lack of any confident conclusion on where her vision center might be located. “Anyways, I don’t want to take you anywhere; well, not anywhere bad at any rate.”

 

“Oh? You don’t? Well that’s a relief. Lead the way then.” If Aperture had eyes she would have rolled them.

 

“O-oh, really?”

 

“Of course not! What kind of idiot do you take me for?”

 

“I’m sure you’re not an idiot but I do think that you might be overreacting a little.” Chiddle scratched the back of their neck. “I’m guessing that you were betrayed before but you can’t just not trust anyone… It’s very hard to live like that.”

 

“I never said I won’t trust anyone,” said Aperture. “I just don’t trust you. And why would I? You’re clearly of **Their** ilk.”

 

Chiddle took a step back with a hand put over their chest. “Why would you even think that?”

 

“I don’t know, maybe the fact I’m not blind?”

 

“But… you also have been warped by **Them** .” Chiddle tilted their head. “And I’m assuming that, based on your general temperament and um, temper, that you are trying to cut ties with **Them** as well?”

 

“What, you expect me to believe that you just left? No one can escape **Them**.”

 

“But,” Chiddle said. “Um. You are here. And **They** are not?”

 

“This isn’t going to last! Which is exactly why I need you to get out of my way. There are things I need to do before **They** find me again.”

“Wait a second,” Chiddle leaned forward, “are you fresh from Faerie? Did you just escape?”

 

“No, I’ve been sitting inside this well for years.”

 

“Oh. That’s weird.” Chiddle’s eyes drifted down towards their computer, and the abnormal energy readout data. “Did… something else come through the barrier between planes then? And why would you be waiting in the well if you were in a hurry?

 

“Oh,” Chiddle said, “this is insincerity isn’t it?”

 

“How can anyone possibly be so bad at this.”

 

“So, you did just escape then?”

 

“Obviously!”

 

Chiddle’s mouthparts opened widely and they took a step forward. “Oh that’s so exciting! What was it like? I can barely remember my durance, which is a shame because I’m sure that I must have learned some very important things, but no matter. How did you escape?”

 

Aperture leaned back over the well’s entrance.

 

“Oh, is this something you don’t want to talk about? I think this is the sort of thing that a lot of people don’t want to talk about. That’s okay. But if you do want to talk about it I would absolutely love to hear it.” Chiddle continued, “oh I don’t think you were listening before so I should probably introduce myself again, shouldn’t I? I’m Chiddle, of Charshmarsh. They/them.”

 

Aperture stared at them. They had put their upper left hand forward towards her, and were watching her. Expectantly. Like they wanted something from her.

 

If they were telling the truth, then they probably knew this plane of reality pretty well. Or at least, better than she did. There was a small chance that they might be useful. There was a much larger chance that this was a trick, and that they were trying to win her trust to return her to her Liege. But the chance that they were sincere and useful was enough that she couldn’t ignore it. She would need any help she could get if she wanted to find him before getting returned to where she belonged, after all.

 

“Where is William Chalitillian?” Aperture said, jumping down from the well’s entrance towards Chiddle.

 

Chiddle tilted their head. “I um, don’t know what that is.”

 

“He’s my biological predecessor.” Aperture took another step forward. “I need to find him.”

 

“Oh? Well, that might be... complicated.” Chiddle turned their head skywards. “With returning from Faerie. Time doesn’t always… things could be very different than when you left. And if there's a husk... things can get really awkward.”

 

“I absolutely do not care at all about if things get really awkward. I am going to find him.”

 

“You two were close, I take it? Because I really should warn you, things might have changed a lot since you left.”

 

“I’ve never met him,” Aperture said.

 

“Oh.” Chiddle paused a moment. “Why are you so determined to find him, then?”

 

“Because. I am going to kill him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A picture of Aperture, Chiddle, and a yet as of unintroduced character can be found here, http://beelieveinfandom.tumblr.com/post/173805549787/aperture-ade-and-chiddle-the-main-changelings


	6. Chapter 6

Anger. Confusion. Fear. The feelings flooded into Alcor’s awareness, overwhelming everything else for a few intense moments. Something was terribly wrong with Mizar. Which was more than a little surprising, as Kitarsha, the current Mizar incarnate, was about four feet from Alcor, crocheting the same nightmare plush that he had been working on for the past few months, perfectly content by all accounts.

 

“Are you... okay?” Alcor asked his brother.

 

“I’m on death’s door, bro-bro,” the old man said matter-of-factly. “But I’m no worse than I’ve been lately, if that’s what you’re asking.”

 

“Are you… sure?”

 

“You caught me,” he said, yarn twirling around his needle. “I’m lying my butt off here - my terminal cancer has been upgraded to megacancer, and I’m going to die two years ago. Why?”

 

“Someone is flooding our soul bond with emotions,” Alcor said. “And if it’s not you I’m not sure what’s going on.”

 

Kitarsha shrugged. “It’s probably just some weird time shit. I’m going to reincarnate into a time cop or something. Maybe a time criminal. Hopefully a time criminal; I could go for some time crime. Why don’t you go check it out?”

 

“I don’t want to abandon you.”

 

“I’m dying, not dead. Go freak out my reincarnation. I’ll still be here when you get back.”


	7. Chapter 7

“You’re going to what now?” squeaked Chiddle.

 

“I’m going to kill my biological predecessor,” said Aperture. “I’m going to kill William Chalitillian. He is currently alive and he soon will not be, and this will be because of my actions. I will end him. Am I being clear enough for you? Do you need me to explain more?”

 

“Have you considered, maybe, not doing that thing?”

 

Aperture looked at Chiddle like they just suggested chugging antifreeze.

 

“What did he even do? To make you want to kill him when you haven’t even met him? That seems just a little severe.”

 

Aperture crossed her arms. “He gave his first born child to the Fae.”

 

Chiddle winced. “Oh. That’s pretty. Um. Wow. I’m sorry.”

 

“I don’t care if you’re sorry. Are you going to help me find him?”

 

“Well, the thing is,” Chiddle ran their hands along their branch-like hairs. “You can get in a lot of trouble for killing someone. He deserves it, don’t get me wrong, but it might be a better idea to like, get him imprisoned, or make everyone he knows forget he exists or something.”

 

“I don’t have time for that!” shouted Aperture. “ **They** are going to hunt me down, and then it won’t matter what consequences there are for killing someone, I’m going to be experiencing much worse!”

 

“Okay,” Chiddle said slowly, “but what if they don’t catch you? They aren’t infallible, even if it can sometimes seem that way. I was sure that they were going to find me again when I first got free, but I’m still here. We have a lot of ways of staying out of  **Their** sights.”

 

“Just because your Liege didn’t actually care about you doesn’t mean anything.  **They** are going to find me.  **They** only let me go so  **They** could hunt me down. There isn’t any way of staying out of  **Their** grasp, not if they want me.”

 

“Does it really hurt to try and live like you’re going to stay awhile?” Chiddle asked. “The timescale they exist on is different than ours. Even if  **They** do hunt you down, you might be here for some time.”

 

“I’m not going to - look, all I care about is killing the man responsible for this. Nothing else matters. You’re not being very helpful. Is there anyone else I could talk to?”

 

Chiddle, realizing that they were more than a little out of their depth on their own, perked up. “Yes! There are others. There are lots of others! Come on, I’ll introduce you to them.”

 

“I’m not going anywhere with you, can’t you bring them here?” Aperture said, before realizing that she was directly in front of a gateway to Faerie. “Or, um, not here but… I’m not following you.”

 

“Are you still worried that I might be working for  **Them** ?” 

 

“Nothing you have said has given me any serious reason to believe otherwise.”

 

“Well, how about this?” Chiddle drew themself up to their full height. “I, Chiddle Knodle of the Charshmarsh freehold, swear upon my very name and being that I will not do anything that will, to my knowledge, bring anyone to  **Them** or  **Their** thralls, nor will I do harm or bring to harm any who hear this oath.”

 

Aperture gasped as she felt the magic of the words.

 

“You would… become nameless?” she asked.

 

“The point of that is that I won’t become nameless because I’m not going to turn you in,” Chiddle chattered. “I’m rather fond of my name and uh, the whole being a person thing, so my oath is an assurance that I’m not going to try anything. I could swear it on something else if that would make you more comfortable?”

 

“No, your name is fine, it’s just, weird. No one’s ever sworn on anything that big for me before.”

 

“It’s important that you can feel secure. Us changelings, we have a lot to be afraid of, and other survivors shouldn’t be on that list. We all go pretty far so we can feel safe with each other.”

 

Aperture stepped back. “Changeling?”

 

“It’s what we call ourselves. We who have been changed by  **Them** .”

 

“Others have escaped?” She leaned forward. “How common can that be?”

 

Chiddle shook their head. “It doesn’t happen that often; there’s only a few thousand of us across the connected galaxy.”

 

“A few thousand? How could that many people have possibly gotten away from  **Them** ?”

 

“That really depends on who you ask,” said Chiddle. “Some people think it’s just part of  **Their** game, and that we are less free than we think we are. I don’t think that’s the case, though, because people die without ever getting recaptured, of normal enough things. Some people think that  **They** just don’t care about us like we assume that they do. I like to think, I mean, I  _ do _ think, that  **They** aren’t infallible, and if we’re careful  **They** can’t find us, and  **They** don’t have infinite patience and give up after a while.”

 

“So all these people get away and no one ever gets brought back?”

 

Chiddle looked down. “Oh. No. People do get recaptured sometimes. The hunt is good at what it does and we… definitely aren’t infallible either. And sometimes people go back on their own, you know, because it was awful but it was also wonderful and it’s what they knew.”

 

“Do you ever think about going back?”

 

“Well, sometimes, when I’m really stressed out and overwhelmed, I get the thought, but it’s never serious. It’s kinda like how I’m pretty sure everyone wishes they were dead sometimes. Thoughts happen, but they don’t have to lead to actions.”

 

Aperture decided not to comment on the fact that she was pretty sure she had never wished she was dead before she was Taken. It was hard to remember before. Maybe she had, sometimes. 

 

“But I really like it here, for the most part,” they continued. “It’s so fascinating! Did you know that this world isn’t held together with magic? Like, the force that’s holding us down to the ground right now, that’s not a contract or any other sort of magic. It’s just something that mass does on its own.”

 

“How is that any different than it being caused by magic?”

 

“Well, the behavior cannot be altered, for one, and it will behave the same even in places where there is no magical energy!”

 

“First of all,” said Aperture, crossing her arms, “I remember that there are things that aren’t held to the ground, and second of all, how can you have places without magical energy? It makes the world.”

 

“Well yeah, some things can fly, but they’re still being pulled down with the same amount of force, they’re just exerting a greater force upwards. As for your second question, that’s what makes the physical plane so different! It isn’t made of magic. It’s made of matter and energy. Magical energy is generated from living things, and corresponds to physical locations through local mindscapes and living things’ dreamscapes. But in places where there’s no life there’s no mana.”

 

“There’s places where there aren’t living things?” Aperture asked. It was a weird thing to contemplate to her, having come from Faerie which, even at its most inhospitable, still had some ideas clinging to existence.

  
“Most places, actually. See, living things are made of matter, but matter clumps together, so you get these islands of matter in a vast sea of nothingness. What do you see when you look up?”

 

“Little lights,” said Aperture. “Are they alive?”

 

“No, those are stars. Each one is a million times larger than the planet that we’re on. They only look small because they are very, very far away. And all that blackness between them? That’s nothingness. No magic, no matter, nothing.”

 

“Whoa. That’s -” Aperture stopped. “That’s completely irrelevant! You’re trying to distract me. And it almost worked… You’re going to stop stalling and take me to someone who can help me kill my biological predecessor right now, okay? Or I’m just going to do it alone.”

 

“Oh, right. Come on, I’ll take you to the Charshmarsh freehold. Someone there should be able to help,” Chiddle said, relaxing a little. They might not be great with words but someone at the freehold should be able to talk her down from trying to kill someone.


	8. Chapter 8

“He did  _ what _ ? I’ll kill him myself!” shouted Ade.

 

Ade looked mostly like a floating jellyfish, with a large eye taking up the majority of her bell, a thin body that had two mostly useless footless legs, and two ribbony oral arms that ended with dark skinned hands. Her numerous tentacles danced around her as she spoke. 

 

Aperture had been introduced to Adetokunbo, or Ade, all of thirty seconds ago and she already liked her. Admittedly, Aperture currently had a single criterion for determining if she liked a person, but that didn’t stop her from being thrilled that someone filled said criterion so enthusiastically. 

 

“But Adey,” Chiddle said. “Terrenes take murder really seriously. Maybe you could think of a different thing to do to him?”

 

“Chidds, he gave them to  **Them** . If they think he needs to die for it he needs to die for it, FUCK Terrene law.”

 

“But that could endanger the whole freehold.”

 

“He offered up his firstborn!” cried Ade. “Even in my before we knew better than that, and we didn’t have the stories of those of us who came back. There are enough changelings who have gone public here that no one has an excuse!”

 

“I, um, ha-hate to say it, Chiddle,” said a changeling that looked like the unholy offspring of a bull and a leaf-nosed bat, with fingers flying along a piece of fabric, thin needles slowly adding to it. “But I a-agree with Ade. You don’t just… He had to know what he was do-doing, and he did it anyway. That’s not… he di-deserves what he ha-has coming. Death is a ki-kinder fate than he gave them.”

 

“I’m not saying that he doesn’t deserve to die,” clarified Chiddle. “I’m saying that if we kill him it will bring problems down on the freehold. And I’m not letting any of us get imprisoned, not again. There are other ways we can punish him.”

 

“I already told you I don’t have time for anything else!” Aperture shouted. Chiddle was starting to suspect that shouting was her main mode of communication.

 

“Look, Chiddie, they’re still checking every shadow for a hound,” said Ade. “I’m sure they’ll feel much better once they can put this behind them.”

 

“But…”

 

“Anyway! If we want to make sure we don’t get in trouble all we need to do is make sure we don’t get caught,” Ade said with the confidence of someone who actually knew what they were doing.

 

“Terrenes are really good at tracking down murderers though.”

 

“Maybe,” Ade said, floating a little higher. “Or maybe we just don’t hear about the ones that get away!” 

 

Chiddle’s eyes narrowed.“Are you suggesting that there are a large number of murderers walking free? That’s not the comforting thought you’re acting like it is.”

 

“Anyway,” said Ade. “You should cease the agitation in your mammary glands because -” 

 

“I don’t have mammary glands,” interrupted Chiddle. “Sorry to interrupt but that’s not a thing.”

 

“Be- _ cause _ , the freehold isn't going get in trouble. It’s not the freehold’s doing. It’s something that I’m doing with - Hey you, what’s your name?”

 

“Aperture. She/her.”

 

“Thank you. Something I’m doing with Aperture.”

 

“But you’re still going to get in trouble,” said Chiddle. “I don’t - I  _ really _ don’t want to lose you, Ade.”

 

“All the more reason for me to not get caught!” Ade said cheerfully. “Anyways, Aperture, what’s the plan?”

 

“I’m going to find him,” she said. “And then I’m going to kill him.”

 

“That is not a plan! But I like the initiative! You really look past the flag and charge the holder.” Ade crossed her arms. “Hey, Chidds, did you really go out to find someone new and/or get in a fight with one of  **Their** minions without any clothing on?”

 

“I’m wearing clothing,” Chiddle explained. “I’m wearing two whole articles of clothing.”

 

Ade rolled her eye. “As adorable as your dedication to the hat and scarf that Deets made you is, it doesn’t really count as clothing.”

 

“It’s warm out,” Chiddle said. “Clothing is itchy when it’s warm.”

 

“I thought clothing was itchy when it was cold?”

 

“Clothing is itchy at all times and temperatures. Wearing it is an all around unpleasant experience and I don’t see why I should have to wear it when the elements are mild.”

 

Ade shook her bell. “Sometimes I don’t know what I see in you.”

 

Aperture’s patience was rapidly running out. “Do you know how to find him?”

 

“Nope!” Ade chirped. “But I sure know some things we could try. Just let me do something real quick.”

 


	9. Chapter 9

“Hey boss,” Ade said. “I just wanted to call and let you know that I’m helping my new friend on her quest for revenge and won’t be coming in today.”


	10. Chapter 10

“And this,” Ade said, waving a small cube at Aperture, “is called a computer. They can do all sorts of things! Like playing games, or music, or raining vengeance upon one's enemies.”

 

Aperture crossed her arms. “I know what a computer is. I’m not stupid.”

 

“Hey! I didn’t know what a computer was before I came here. Not having encountered something before doesn’t me you’re stupid, silly.”

 

“Where are you from that you hadn’t encountered a computer before?”

 

“I’m from the past!” Ade explained.

 

Aperture tilted herself. “Did you… steal a time machine? Should I be worried about meddling time cops?”

 

“No, no, no, I just wasn’t aiming for where or when I came from when I was returning here from Faerie. See, Faerie is, um, I think the words that Chiddie used were ‘temporally disconnected’ from here. Basically, when you go to Faerie, you’re completely removed from this plane’s timeline. So when you come back, you could enter anywhen! Most people are focused on returning home, so they’ll end up pretty close to where and when they left. But my life before was… it wasn’t so great. So I was just trying to get aware from Faerie, and I ended up here! Which was really lucky: according to Chidds I was just as likely to end up in the nightmare realm. You’d have to count on Deets for help then! That would have been really bad. I love him and he tries hard, but he just doesn’t have much initiative.”

 

“How far back in the past could you be from to not have computers at all?” Aperture asked. “I thought computers existed pretty much forever ago?”

 

“I’m from VERY far in the past. We didn’t even have magic back then!” she explained. “There were rumors about it, of course: everyone knew a guy who knew a guy who totally practiced for real, but most people didn’t really believe in it. I don’t think I really did. I don’t think I really would have headed out if I actually thought that there was anything worse than lions out there… But that doesn’t matter. I’m here now. And I love it here! I’d almost say it was worth it.”

 

“How can you not have magic? That doesn’t… Magic wasn’t something that people made one day. It’s part of how the world works.”

 

“Yeah, but we didn’t know that yet. I’m not sure how we could have missed it, but I remember being very surprised the first time I saw obvious magic here!” Ade laughed. “Well, terrified actually; I thought that only  **They** could do magic. I was sure that the centaur that I saw casting was one of  **Them** . It took Chidds forever to talk me down from that.” 

 

“So were you planning on just looking him up then?” asked Aperture.

 

“Yeah. I figured we might as well start simple, right?”

 

Aperture took the square inch cube that Ade offered her and unfolded it into a gently curving screen. She poked at it a little. Words and images flew around in response to her finger. 

 

She had no fucking clue how to use this. 

 

“Um,” she said. “I don’t… remember how this works.”

 

“That’s okay. I can show you. Do you still remember how to read?”

 

“Is that really a thing that people can forget?”

 

“Faerie can change a lot of things,” Ade explained. “It’s pretty much possible to forget anything. I’ve met people who don’t remember their birth names. I doubt I’d be able to carve ivory with any skill anymore, and that was second nature to me before.”

 

“What’s ivory?”

 

“It’s what animal tusks are made of, or at least, what they’re made of on Earth. The city I’m from was renowned for our ivory carvings. It’s what my parents did, and I was learning how before I… left.”

“So, how do I make this show me where my biological predecessor is?”


	11. Chapter 11

“Wow! William Chalitillian is a really common name!” Ade commented. “Who knew?”

 

They were walking through the woods around the freehold now, which was far from the well where Aperture had emerged. Aperture felt more comfortable on the move, despite how much she had been assured that the freehold was well warded. It didn’t have enough exits. It was too exposed. It just didn’t feel safe. And the woods around the freehold were also fairly well warded, so there wasn’t any harm in wandering through them as they searched for information on her biological predecessor. 

 

Aperture’s screen bobbed with her movement in the air in front of her. She had not been able to determine anything more than Adetokunbo had. There sure were hundreds of people sharing the name of the one who needed to die. 

 

“And you’re sure you don’t know what he looks like?” Ade asked.

 

Aperture shrugged. “I’ve never met him. My Liege wasn’t so kind as to show me a picture.”

 

“And you wouldn’t happen to own anything of his, would you?”

 

“Well, presumably I have some of his blood.”

 

Ade’s eye narrowed. “Do you even  _ have _ blood?”

 

“I do leak a fluid if I’m cut, but it is thicker and darker than I remember blood being…”

 

“It doesn’t matter anyway.” Ade shook her bell. “He broke the connection between you two when he promised you to  **Them** .”

 

“Well, he didn’t give me any family heirlooms, no. And even if he had, I wouldn’t still have them.”

 

“There is still something we can try, but I’m not sure how comfortable you’ll -” Ade stopped talking and looked around, alarmed. “Oh my gosh do you feel that!?”

 

Changelings were partially creatures of magic, and as such, were slightly in tune with the local mindscape even while in the physical plane. If they weren’t paying attention to it, it was easy to ignore or be oblivious to it. With the visceral fear of being hunted and recaptured being so common among them, however, they tended to make an effort to notice anything big passing by. 

 

Adetokunbo had not been paying attention to the local mindscape, and Aperture wasn’t quite used to being on the physical plane enough to realize that she needed to pay attention. This was probably fortunate for the two of them. Generally, a reasonably powerful entity passing through the local mindscape would feel something like being inside while a car alarm went off a block away. If things were quiet, or you were just especially sensitive, it was hard to ignore. If bigger things were demanding your attention, however, it was very easy to miss. This was nothing like that. This was like if you were outside and an ambulance realized that there weren’t enough people getting injured on their own to fulfill its monthly quota, so it decided to take things into its own hands, sirens ablazing, starting with you.

 

“No!” Aperture explained. “ **They** can’t be here yet! I haven’t even found him yet.”

 

Ade stared at Aperture. “ _ That’s _ what your Liege feels like?!”

 

“Can you think of anything else that could feel like that?”

 

“We have to get out of here,” said Ade.

 

“Where are we going to go that  **They** can’t follow?”

 

The overwhelming feeling of pressure, weight, and noise that filled the two’s awarenesses suddenly burst, leaving them both feeling strangely lightheaded. 

 

There was a figure in front of them. It was humanoid, a black shape with gleaming white teeth grinning widely at them. 

 

No. Not at them.

 

At Aperture.

 

This was not her Liege. 

 

Who was this? 

 

They felt familiar. 

 

Warm, almost.

 

She was being pulled backwards. 

 

Ade was pulling her. 

 

“What are you doing, we need to  _ go _ !” Ade yelled. 

 

Aperture shook. What was she doing? 

 

She looked again at the entity in front of her. 

 

The blackness was melting away in a way that was neither human nor Fae, simply unnatural. It made her skin crawl. 

 

She stumbled along Adetokunbo’s desperate pull, tearing her face away from that of the entity.

 

“Where can we go?” she said.

 

“Anywhere but here!”

 

“But how?”

 

“How else? Through a doorway!” Ade shifted her heading a little. “Now, whatever you do, don’t let go.”

 

The two of them tore through the woods with Ade leading, determinedly going towards something. Aperture couldn’t imagine what. It was all trees as far as she could see. There did not appear to be any doors standing proud in solitary vigil. 

 

There was spot where one tree’s branch hit another tree, making an arch. Adetokunbo pulled them both through it. 


	12. Chapter 12

There wasn’t a flash. There really should have been a great, blinding flash, but reality cared not for simple cinematic logic and instead, as they crossed to the other side, the world simply shifted around them. The bare earth of the ground looked grayer, the trees looked slightly transparent, and distances were highly skewed. 

 

“What just happened?” asked Aperture.

 

“Any door can serve as a gateway to the mindscape. If you have a broad enough definition of ‘door’, this can be really, really, useful,” Ade explained. “If we go into my dreamscape we can jump between a bunch of connected dreamscapes and hopefully lose that demon.”

 

“That’s a demon?”

 

“That’s an absurdly powerful demon. I didn’t even know demons could be that powerful!” Ade took both of Aperture’s hands and focused on her with her massive eye. “Now this might be a little weird but bare with me.”

 

Ade pulled Aperture to her, and, from Aperture’s perspective, stretched out around Aperture, surrounding her, enveloping her, growing closer and closer until Ade blocked out all the light and everything went dark. 


	13. Chapter 13

Aperture floated above a flooded city. The murky liquid that covered it obscured the city’s details. The only things that Aperture could really make out was that it looked old, very old. It was made of stones for some reason, and that there was a massive building that rose above the choppy waters. It looked regal, in the way buildings from civilizations past did, and was less impressive in its height as its width. It stretched out horizontally for what seemed like forever. 

 

“This is where I’m from,” Ade said from her position next to Aperture. “I remember the city better than I remember my old house. I used to love wandering the streets.” 

 

“What’s that building there?” Aperture pointed to the huge building dominating the horizon. 

 

“That’s the palace! It was the biggest palace in the world!”

 

“Really?”

 

“Well, maybe.” Ade shrugged. “We didn’t really have contact with most of the world, so we wouldn’t really know if there was a bigger one on, like, a different continent or something… It was definitely the biggest palace in the area. Anyway! We shouldn’t dawdle here. It would take some effort, but that demon could still follow us here, and I don’t want a powerful demon in my dreamscape!”

 

Adetokunbo led Aperture down into the dark liquid that flooded the city. Once they passed through its barrier, Aperture found it much easier to see than she thought it would be. She could see easier than she could in reality, actually. Everything she focused on she could see with perfect clarity, like her eyes were zooming in on a high resolution photo. 

 

The buildings did not look like they did from above the liquid. The didn’t appear to be made of stone, at least, not all of them did. Some were the old stone design that could be seen from above, but some looked sleek and modern, some looked unnaturally organic, like oddly shaped coral, some looked like they were made of fragile tissue paper. and others had their own peculiar looks. 

 

As Ade pulled her through the streets, Aperture could see things moving in the doors and windows of the houses. She saw the vaguely familiar figures of Chiddle and some of the other Changelings of Charshmarsh with some frequency. Sometimes there would be unfamiliar silhouettes and voices. Sometimes, they would be angry. Sometimes, it hurt to walk by. 

 

Behind them, always behind them no matter which way they turned, was a thick thorny bramble. 

Looking at it made Aperture’s insides churn. She wondered if her dreamscape would have something similar. Not that it would be brambles, for sure, but... She could picture the scar that Faerie might have left on her mind. She really wished she couldn’t. 

 

Adetokunbo pulled her through one of the doors. It looked a bit like a computer screen, and as they passed though its boundary, the world changed again. It was dim here. It looked a bit like an office building, with long, stretching hallways leading off into the distance. The area was filled with desks, each one containing numerous computer screen showing faces and events that made little sense to Aperture.

 

“Where are we now?” Aperture asked. “This doesn’t look like your dreamscape anymore.”

 

“It’s not. It’s the dreamscape of some guy I know. He’s like, a security guard or something? I got to know him pretty much exclusively so I could hop into the dreamscape of someone I don’t care about that much.”   
  


“You can enter someone else’s dreamscape?” asked Aperture.

 

“Yeah! You can too. Probably. Most changelings can. Normal people can’t without a ritual, but what kind of loser would be one of those?”

 

“Heh heh, yeah…” said Aperture, who very much wished that she was still relatively normal.

 

“Anyway, when you get close with someone, your dreamscapes become connected. Us changelings, along with  **Them** , dream demons, and some other creatures of the mindscape can travel across those connections to rapidly move through the mindscape.  It’s very hard to follow someone through a series of minds, so unless that demon is a dream demon or practically omniscient we should be fine.”

 

“What if it is a dream demon?”

 

Ade laughed. “Then it could probably track us and we’re absolutely screwed. But dream demons aren’t very common, and probably wouldn’t have manifested in the physical plane, so I’m sure we’ll be fine. Here, this way.”

 

Holding Aperture’s hand, she jumped through one of the screens. Aperture dived through after her. As soon as they crossed the screen’s threshold, total darkness surrounded them.

 

“How could this be someone’s mindscape?” Aperture asked. 

 

Ade shrugged. “Some people just aren’t very visual. Come on, this way.”

 

“How do you know where to go?”

 

“Well, I have no clue where I’m going, we’re pretty much randomly hopping between people at this point. But I’ve navigated non-visual dreamscapes before. You just gotta feel ‘em out.”

 

“But I don’t have feelers like you do.”

 

Ade laughed. “You don’t have to be so literal. We’re in the mindscape. You’re not confined by physical limitations here.”

 

“So… I could give myself feelers like yours?”

 

“Well, you certainly  _ could _ , but you could also just expand your awareness a little until you get a feel for the lay of the land.”

 

“How do I do that?” 

 

“I like to close my eye and just…” Ade stopped. “Well, you don’t have an eye I don’t think. Do you? Is that white spot in your dark spot an eye? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. You need to stop trying to see. Let the darkness just be darkness, rather than an obstacle. Imagine that you are reaching forward until you can feel an edge. Then just feel around a little until you have an idea what you’re dealing with.”

 

Aperture made an effort to relax and stop focusing on the darkness. It was easier to ignore the darkness than it was to relax. There was a demon interested in her. She still needed to find her biological predecessor and there was a demon, of all things, interested in her. She didn’t need this right now. She didn’t need this ever! No one in the history of history needed this! 

 

She reached forward, trying to feel what was in front of her. There was nothing within arm’s reach. Planting her feet, she leaned forward a little, reaching forward. And then, without leaning any further forward, she reached farther away, slowly pushing her phantom hand further from herself until she hit something. It was rough, and hard, with some grit on the outer layer. It was a couple paces in front of her, she thought, although she was fairly uncertain. And then she let her awareness spread. She could zoom in and out her sense of touch just as she could her sense of vision when she had been in Ade’s dreamscape. With a ‘wider angle’ she could feel that there was a rough wall that circled the area she was in. There were numerous elliptical openings in it, at various heights, all around the room. The ceiling and floor were the same rough texture as the walls, and there wasn’t a nice edge defining wall versus floor versus ceiling. 

 

She felt one of Ade’s tentacles touch her real arm, and gently pull it forward. 

 

“I think that we should go through that opening,” Ade said. “I got a good feeling about that one.”

 

“Anything behind that good feeling?”

 

“Yeah! I like it!”

 

Aperture laughed. “Sure. Let’s just go before that demon finds us.”

 

The two went for the hole. As they neared it voices could be heard. Happy laughing voices, talking about getting a new couch. One of them was going on and on about the colors this couch was, which they described as an improbable number of clashing colors, and the other was just laughing and laughing. 

 

They went through the opening. 

 

It was very bright here. Bright and colorful, like a Lisa Frank folder. They were surrounded by bright pink grass. There were purple ponds scattered around.  Around the area were cyan creatures that looked like pill bugs the size of horses. Colossal isopods.

 

“Oh my gosh,” Aperture gasped. “I think I love it here? I need to ride one of those things, as soon as possible.”

 

“Yesss. Do it!”

 

“I’m gonna! I’m gonna do it!” Aperture ran towards the nearest isopod at full speed. It didn’t react to her presence, until she launched herself onto its back, after which it reared up and charged away at its full speed of not very fast. 

 

“Oh no,” Ade laughed. “Our time together was so short…”

 

“Get over here!” Aperture shouted. “You gotta try this thing!”

 

Ade floated over to the isopod, grabbing onto its back.

 

The isopod jumped into the air, and swam through the sky at its full speed of slightly concerningly fast. 

 

“Haha, this is awesome!”

 

“Isn’t it? This person’s brain is great!”

 

The isopod spun very quickly, launching the two changelings through one of the purple pools.


	14. Chapter 14

As they flew through the surface of the water, the world went gray. They were in a building, someone’s home, in front of two humanoid people. One of them had only one arm, dark skin and darker glasses, they were covering half their face with a hand and grinning widely. 

 

“You know,” they said, “current studies suggest that one hundred percent of all traffic violations happen in the universe.”

 

“See?” said the other person. They had light skin and an iridescent outfit that sparkled brightly between several shades of grey. “And ten thousand percent of all bullies exist in the universe. You take the universe out of the equation and the problem just goes away.”

 

“Did you know…” the first one said, “that the universe is inside this house? Right now?”

 

The second one gasped. “The universe? In my garden salad? It’s more likely than you think!”

 

“Is this a memory?” Aperture asked.

 

“No, this is reality,” Ade responded. “We fell out of their dreamscape. We’re just in the mindscape now. But we jumped between enough people that I think we should be fine.”

 

“So how do we get to like,  _ reality _ reality?”

 

“We just have to go through another gateway. Come on, let’s find one that is less conspicuous.”

 

The two changelings left the two laughing people behind, going through the wall of the room into the outside world. They were floating rather high up, probably twenty-five stories in the air. The area looked to be a desert, with plants growing in planter boxes in windows and not many other places. There were two daytime stars in the sky, one of them about the same size as the local star of Olofi, the planet that the two changelings had come from, and the other being much larger in the sky. 

 

They floated down to ground level and looked around. There were not many people out, possibly because the stars were at their zenith and it was quite hot out. With a bit of wandering, they found an arch in a rock garden. Going through it, color and gravity returned to the world. Lots of gravity. Aperture felt like a child was hanging off of her, pulling her down with them. 

 

“Where are we?” Aperture asked. 

 

“I’m not sure, let me check.” 

 

Ade pulled her computer out of her pocket and unfolded it with a flick of her wrist. She briefly turned the GPS on.

 

“It looks like we’re on Ilette,” she said. “That’s pretty far from Olofi, like 35 light years. Hopefully that will be enough that the demon won’t find us... Although it could get here just as easily as we did.”

 

“Whoa. Ilette,” Aperture said. “That’s so far away. I’ve never been on a different planet before.”

 

“You’ve been in a different dimension, silly. This is much closer to your home than Faerie is.”

 

“I guess… But that doesn’t really count.”

 

“No,” agreed Ade. She started pressing things on her screen. “I’m going to see if Chiddle can help us find something out about that demon. They’re pretty cleaver about finding shit out.”

 

“I’m glad you have some idea of what to do because I don’t know anything about demons.”

 

“Hmm,” said Ade. “Chidds thinks that maybe your father promised you to a demon too. It would be a very unwise thing to do but some people think they can play the system. If that is what happened and the demon feels like it has a valid claim on you then there isn’t too much we can do except hide you… assuming you even  _ can _ hide from that powerful of a demon.”

 

“Not my father,” said Aperture. “My father was a great guy who loved me and my moms and would never had let anything happen to me. My biological predecessor is a jerk who gave me away without even knowing me.”

 

“Right. Sorry,” said Ade. “Anyway, it’s also possible that in a previous life you sold your soul to the demon. If that’s the case there isn’t much we can do either…”

 

“Is there any scenario where we aren’t absolutely helpless?”

 

“Well, it might just be that the demon has some interest in your Liege, and if  **They’re** about to start a Wild Hunt for you, it just wanted to get a look at you. That’s probably the best case scenario, as it wouldn’t change too much about the current situation.

 

“Chidds is saying that they don’t think that it was you fa- your biological predecessor,” Ade continued. “Apparently you can’t promise someone else’s soul in a demonic deal so the most likely thing he would have offered is your life, and with a demon that powerful you would probably be dead by now if that happened.”

 

“So if the demon actually has a connection to me, it’s likely because I offered it my soul in a previous life?” Aperture asked.

 

“That’s what I’m understanding.”

 

“How could any incarnation of me be so stupid and selfish?”

 

“People get desperate. There was probably some condition that the demon couldn’t collect the soul until they died, and for a lot of people their reincarnation isn’t really them.”

 

“If it really is that powerful of a demon, why didn’t it claim my soul already?”

 

“I don’t know,” Ade said. “Maybe you being claimed by  **Them** had something to do with it? My understanding is that things are complicated between demons and  **Them** , it could be that it didn’t want to get involved when you were younger because of  **Their** claim, but now that you’ve freed yourself you’re fair game?”

 

“This is really not what I need right now!” Aperture stamped her food on the ground. “I just wanna kill a guy why is everything being so complicated!”

 

“It might not be a soul thing either,” Ade said. “It could be that you promised a demon something else in a previous life.”

 

“So this could be about literally anything?”

 

“Pretty much yeah.”

 

“And we don’t have  _ any _ way of determining what?”

 

“No - actually Chidds say that they could make you a potion that could be helpful. They’re really good at potions.”

 

“What would that even do?” asked Aperture.

 

“They say that it would make you remember your interactions with the demon in your previous incarnation. They would need to get something related to the demon though - would you be willing to give up the memory of what the demon looked like? That should be enough.”

 

“Yeah. I don’t need to remember its face to know that a demon is probably bad news.”

 

“Alright. We should head back then. Chiddle will need to see you in person to make the potion.”


	15. Chapter 15

“Okay. So finding my biological predecessor is an even higher priority than ever, since I might also be being hunted by a demon on top of my Liege.” Aperture was lounging upside down on a couch at Charshmarsh, having given Chiddle what they needed for her potion. “And I have no idea how to track down this person.”

 

“Well, you shouldn’t be hunting him down until you’ve thought of a way to not get caught anyway,” Chiddle said, stirring the potion in a kitchen mixing bowl.

 

“I’ve already told you I don’t care,” Aperture moaned. 

 

“Look Chidds, we’re playing this whole thing by ear,” Ade said. “We’ll think of something, okay? We’re not going to get locked up.”

 

“That isn’t a plan, Adetokunbo,” Chiddle said. “That’s nothing. I feel like you’re completely ignoring what I have to say.”

 

“And I feel that you’re ignoring Aperture’s needs!” Ade cried. “You’re assuming that we’ll have time to do something safer but we might not.  **They** are good at what  **They** do. We have no idea how much of our success was just dumb luck. And now there’s a demon involved! We aren’t equipped to handle a powerful demon, Chidds! You’re shooting down the simplest solution without providing any comparable alternatives; you’re so afraid of what might happen that you’d stop anything from happening at all, and I’m not going to let that fly!”

 

“I just want you to be safe, Adey. You’ve been through so much, I don’t want you to be punished again for something so preventable.”

 

“Well, that’s my decision to make, not yours. I’m glad you’re worried about me, but this is a risk that I am willing to take. I will try to not get caught, okay? But I’m not going to let the fear of getting caught prevent me from doing this.”

 

“Okay. Just, be careful, alright? I don’t want to lose any family.”

 

“You know me,” Ade smiled with her eye. “I’m always careful. Careful like a cat on a table full of precariously placed objects.”

 

Chiddle glared at Ade. 

 

“Alright, seriously though,” Ade put her hands up as she spoke. “I’ll be careful. Actually careful. As careful as I can be without it interfering with the mission.”

 

“I guess that’s all I can ask for,” said Chiddle, a little disappointedly. 

 

“So,” Aperture drawled. “How much longer on that potion?”

 

“Oh!” Chiddle perked up. “It should be done, actually. My timer went off while we were talking but I ignored it and then forgot about it. Fortunately there shouldn’t be any problems caused by over-agitating the mixture. Let me just go get a bottle for it.”

 

“That was fast,” Aperture said.

 

“Yeah! Chidds is  _ really _ good at potions,” Ade chirped.

 

“So…” Aperture leaned forward towards Ade. “Before the demon came you had some idea about something we could do to find my biological predecessor?”

 

“Oh right! Did you know your other biological predecessor?”

 

“Yeah,” Aperture said quietly. “She was one of my moms.”

 

“Well, assuming the connection between the two of you didn’t get severed, which it probably didn’t if you still remember her, we could enter her dreamscape through yours, and find him through her.”

 

“Entering mama’s mind?” asked Aperture.

 

“Yep.”

 

“Well I guess…” Aperture shook herself. “If that’s the only way to find him, it’s what we’ve gotta do.”

 

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Ade said.

 

“No, I need to find him. It doesn’t matter how. He has to die.”

 

Chiddle walked back into the room., holding an orb shaped glass bottle. They handed it to Aperture.

 

“So this is it huh?” she asked, taking the potion. “Memories of a past life?”

 

“Should be,” said Chiddle. “Unless you never interacted with the demon, in which case it should do nothing.”

 

Aperture looked at what she was holding. It was an unnaturally vivid pink. The color was the sort of intensity found in nature when something was trying to warn you it was poisonous. 

 

Everyone was watching her. 

 

Waiting for her to drink it.

 

Waiting for answers. 

 

“I don’t think I can do this,” she whispered. “I don’t want to remember being the sort of person who would make a deal with a demon. Who would sacrifice someone else for their own benefit. I don’t want to have memories of being like  _ him _ .”

 

“That’s okay,” Chiddle said. “It wasn’t hard to make. If you change your mind though, make sure to let me know. I’m really interested in why a demon might be interested in you, and how past lives are different than current lives, and if my potion even works… Just let me know if you drink it - I have many questions.”

 

Aperture reached into the dark circle at her center with the hand holding the potion, and dropped it inside. 

 

“Wait,” Chiddle said. “You use that for storage? I assumed that was like, an eye or a mouth or something.”

 

Aperture shrugged.

 

“How do you drink?”

 

“I pour stuff in the hole and then drink it rather than store it,” Aperture said. “It isn’t complicated.”

 

“How do you retrieve things, once you’ve put them in there?”

 

“I just take them out. It really isn’t that big of a deal.”

 

“But how -”

 

“Chidds, let her be. It’s just a thing she can do,” Ade interrupted. “Stop interrogating everyone who does anything you don’t understand.”

 

“Oh, is that what I was doing?”

 

“Yes, it was.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Chiddle said. “You’re just really interesting is all.”

 

“So weren’t we going to invade my mama’s mind or something?” Aperture asked.

 

“Right!” Ade explained. “Back to the quest at hand!”


	16. Chapter 16

Aperture’s dreamscape looked a lot like the local mindscape. It was in color, but everything was grayer than normal, faint and slightly transparent. It looked like they were in a local forest, the purple leaves of the plants peeking out of a fine layer of snow. 

 

For a moment, standing in the snow, watching them intently, was a large creature, black, quadrupedal, hooved, with thick fur that thinned along its proud snout. It disappeared after a second of eye contact, leaving no tracks where it had been standing. 

 

“That was the biggest nightmare I’ve ever seen,” Ade whispered. 

 

“It wasn’t that big. It was like, couch sized at best. A loveseat, maybe.”

 

“I don’t mean physically,” Adetokunbo said. “Didn’t you feel the weight of that? There’s no way that it’s living off of the local mindscape. There wouldn’t be a local mindscape left.”

 

“It has something to do with that demon, doesn’t it?”

 

“Probably. But why would - Ugh, this is dumb. Let’s just do this, before things get more complicated.”

 

“Right. How do we do this?” Apperture was walking as she talked, slowly meandering some random direction. “I’ve never been inside my own dreamscape like this; I don’t know how to navigate it.”

 

“Think really hard about your mama,” Ade said. “Imagine her, and the bond that you have, and the tie between you should appear.”

 

“What will that even look like?” asked Aperture.

 

“In here? It’ll be a tree. All of these trees are memories or ties between you and someone else.”

 

“The trees?” Aperture asked, resting her hand on one of the nearby trunks.

 

Her hand slid through the bark and the world dropped out from under her. 

 

_ The cold air enveloped her like icy water, piercing through her, filling every nook and cranny of her exposed skin with cold fire. Her fingers and toes felt like they might break off every time she flexed them. The ‘snow’ under her belly seemed like it was made by someone who had never interacted with real snow, only guessed what it was like from looking at pictures. It was dry, scratchy, and coarse, like pieces of shattered safety glass. It scraped long red marks along her body as she dragged herself through it. It hurt, but not as much as the wind would if she stood.  _

 

_ She had to bring the Offering back to her Liege. She could feel it on her back, pushing her down further into the false snow.  _

 

_ It was only a little farther, she told herself. She would be there soon. _

 

_ She knew it was a lie, but it helped anyway.  _

 

_ She couldn’t cry. Crying was ugly, and she didn’t want to disappoint  _ **_Them_ ** _ by being more ugly than she already was just because of a little pain. This pain would be nothing against  _ **_Their_ ** _ disappointment. _

 

_ It was only a little farther, she told herself. She would be there soon. _

 

_ She just had to stop being pathetic and useless and ugly and it would be fine. _

 

_ She just had to- _

 

She flew backwards, following her arm which felt like it was going to be pulled from her body. She was standing. Stumbling. She wasn’t cold. She didn’t have anything on her back. There were trees around, and only a very small amount of snow. 

 

“Are you okay? You fell pretty deep into that memory,” said a strange jellyfish-like creature, with hands at the ends of the thick ribbon-like tentacles and a large eye under the translucent bell.

 

She tried to back away, but the thing was holding tightly onto her hand. She tried to yank away, but it was bigger and stronger and what was going on where was her Liege what was she supposed to be doing  **They** were going to be upset with how long she was taking why couldn’t she remember?

 

“Aperture,” the thing said, making her pause. That word sounded familiar. Important. “It’s okay. You’re in your dreamscape. You fell into a memory and might be a little confused.” 

 

Aperture was the name she chose. Why did this thing know it? What did it mean she was in her dreamscape? She was in Faerie. No, that wasn’t right. She had escaped, for a little. Had she gotten caught again, already? Why had she left? There was a reason, something that was really important to her.

 

William. William fucking Chalitillian. She hadn’t killed him yet, so she couldn’t be back in Faerie. She was in her dreamscape. With Adetokunbo, who was going to help her. 

 

She made a mental note to never touch one of those trees again and turned to Ade.

 

“I’m fine, I think, just a little confused. It wasn’t that bad of a memory to get stuck in, all things considered.”

 

Ade let go of her hand. “Okay then, shall we find your tie with your mama?”

 

Aperture closed her eyes and did her best to put the thoughts of crawling through the cold not-snow out of her head. She needed to think of her mama. The full laugh she would break out as she read to Aperture. Her tight hugs. Her beautiful rough skin, so much darker than Aperture’s. How her words would run together when she talked about the world in her head. How she ran over the toes of the parent who said that “kids would be kids” when Aperture was getting bullied with her chair and didn’t even pretend it was an accident. How she used to take the characters that Aperture made and weave stories for them. How - 

 

“Good job, I bet that’s it,” Ade said, interrupting Aperture’s thoughts. 

 

She opened her eyes. Before her was a snowless grove of four huge gray trees. One for each parent. Looking at them, Aperture could easily tell which one was which. She went up to a windswept atlas cedar and stopped in front of it.

 

“That’s the one, huh?”

 

“Yeah,” Aperture said distantly. “That’s my mama.”

 

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” assured Ade.

 

“No, it’s fine. He has to die.”

 

“Well, after you then.”

 

This was the only way to find him. 

 

She had to do this. 

 

Hesitantly and shakily she raised her hand to the tree and pressed it into the bark. Nothing happened. It felt like she was trying to push into a real tree; there just wasn’t any give. 

 

“Something’s wrong,” she said. “It isn’t working.”

 

“Let me try,” said Ade, as she stepped forward and pushed against the tree to no effect. “Well, that complicates things.”

 

“What’s happening?”

 

“I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I think you may have arrived at a different time than you left.” Ade said. “It’s pretty common, and this is similar to what it’s like when I’m trying to enter the dreamscape of anyone who I knew before; none of them are still alive so it just doesn’t work.”

 

“So my mama’s dead?” Aperture asked, alarmed.

 

“Not necessarily,” Ade reassured her. “You might also just be before or after this tie was developed. Normally ties go both ways, but sometimes something happens that makes it so it’s a one way street and that makes it much harder to travel through. This has some give, so I think that’s probably what’s up.”

 

“So can we do this or not?”

 

“We can, but we’re going to have to force our way across,” Ade explained. “There’s a pretty real chance that she might notice.”

 

Aperture stared at the tree. Her mama would probably notice. And then what? This was dumb, she had to do this, it was the only way to find William, but… She hadn’t seen her mama in so long. What if her mama sensed her? She couldn’t face her, not like this, not as a twisted parody of the girl she used to be. She was trying to kill her former partner, and from what her mama had said she had no love for the man she was with before she found her current partners but… Her mama wouldn’t want him to die. And Aperture was absolutely going to kill him. And then she would be taken back and never see her mama again. 

 

She looked around her dreamscape. Behind her was an ominous tall chain link fence with icicles dangling from it. Everything else was trees covered in a fine layer of snow. Except - 

 

“What’s over there?” she asked, pointing across the grove of parental trees at another patch of forest. It looked different. There wasn’t any snow, and the trees were taller, and vines hung from the thick purple canopy. There was a very defined line between the two bits of woods. 

 

“Oh!” said Ade. “Apparently you have a husk! Sometimes  **They** leave behind soulless puppets to take the place of the ones that  **They** take. Their dreamscapes are connected to their changelings, ‘cause they’re basically just a copy of you. Or, they were. This one seems like it’s had some time to grow on its own. I bet it would have a better connection to your mama than this one, if you want to check it out.”

 

“ **They** left behind a fake that knows my mama better than I do?” Aperture said.

 

“Yeah.  **They** do that sometimes. I’m sorry.”

 

“Well, fine.” Aperture shoved down the feelings that were rising in her. “If it will help me kill him I’m not going to complain. At least this means my parents won’t have to know that they lost me.”

 

“It’s okay to be upset about this.”

 

“No, it’s for the best. I just… I gotta kill him. That’s all that matters now. Let’s go.”

 

They crossed the barrier. It felt slightly different, like they entered a train tunnel and their ears needed to pop. But it quickly felt normal. 

 

Aperture looked at the trees. They would be memories, just like hers had been, but where hers were filled with everything that  **They** had done to her, these ones would be filled with the childhood that had been stolen from her. Everything that could have been. 

 

Without really thinking about it, she reached for one of the trunks. 

 

“Aperture?” Ade asked, noticing that the young girl was no longer beside her.

 

“She’s with him,” Aperture’s hand had withdrawn from the tree. “She’s with my biological predecessor. Did… did he come back? Did he promise me away and then think that he could just forget about it? Does he know that she’s a fake? Does he care? Has he reinserted himself in the life of my mama? Like, like nothing even happened? Is that monster with my family?”

 

Apertures hands were curled up into tight balls.

 

“Well, if they’re together now, that simplifies things,” Ade said slowly. “We could just find her direct tie to him.”

 

“Then let’s get this over with,” Aperture growled.


	17. Chapter 17

The nightmare was following them, Adetokunbo noticed. Every now and then she would turn her head and it would be there, only to disappear. She tried not to worry about it, as they passed through William’s dreamscape to the mindscape.

 

The mindscape was very strange here. It was much fainter than it had been on either planet that Aperture had been on. William was walking down a narrow hallway, alone.

 

“I want to talk to him,” Aperture said. “I just…”

 

“Go ahead,” said Ade. “I’ll wait here.”

 

William walked into a large room filled with plants. There was a big mirror on one side of the room.

 

“There’s your doorway. Good luck,” Ade said.


	18. Chapter 18

William let out a deep breath and sat down. The stress of the day leaked out onto the bench beneath him. Fragrant flowers swayed in the gentle breeze of the air filtration system. He could just barely see himself in the edge of the large mirror that made the ship’s small park look much bigger. 

 

He liked this little park. He was hardly alone in that; plants were good for many species’ psychology, but he felt that the bond he had with this little plot of dirt-covered metal was special. It had a lot to do with the fact that he was frequently the only one in the park at the hours that he chose to visit it. Insomnia had a way of making the world feel like it was yours alone. 

 

But he was not quite alone. 

 

Someone was staring at him. He wasn’t sure how he hadn’t noticed them earlier; they were directly in front of him. They looked to be on the border between child and teenager, with gangly limbs like someone stretched out a clay figure. They wore a red dress with flowers embroidered on the chest and bottom edge. Their thick kinky hair surrounded the pale skin of their face like a halo. 

 

He didn’t recognize them, which was a little odd as there weren’t that many passengers on the ship. But hey, he didn’t know everyone.


	19. Chapter 19

Lieutenant Grendenthwich awoke with a start. Something strange had been happening in her dream. The dream itself had been normal enough, or at least, comparably bizarre to normal, but she had felt other presences. 

 

Familiar presences. 

 

It seemed like this assignment was finally reaching its conclusion. 

 

She looked over at the bunk of her protectorate. 

 

It was empty. 

 

“God fuck,” she said, and took off running. 


	20. Chapter 20

“Excuse me, are you lost?” William asked the child.

 

“Are you William Chalitillian?” they said, with surprising levels of aggression. 

 

“Yes?”

 

“Then I’m exactly where I need to be.”

 

“Did someone send you?” William asked. “Do you have something to tell me?”

 

“Yeah, I got a message for you.”

 

“What is it?”

 

“You better run.”

 

He stood up to his full height. “Excuse me?”

 

“Changeling Aperture!” Grendenthwich said loudly from the doorway where she stood panting. “I demand that you step down immediately.”

 

“Changeling?” The dawning understanding in William’s expression would be perfectly at home on the face of someone realizing, as they cut a wire, that the wire they needed to cut to disable the bomb was, in fact, distinctly different than the one that they had just cut.

 

Aperture glared at the newcomer. They looked odd for two reasons. The first, and most prominent, was that they didn’t look like a person so much as a small doll crafted of an icicle and grass with the illusion of a full sized person around it. The second reason was that they were in official Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron pajamas, which looked similar to the standard uniform, only much less armored and significantly more comfy. 

 

“I will step down after I kill him and not a moment before,” Aperture said.

 

“That is not what step down means, citizen.”

 

_ Just out of anyone's attention, beautiful spears of symmetrical frost started to form at the edge of the mirror.  _

 

“I couldn’t care less, copper.” Aperture was almost shouting. “If you had any idea what this man has done you wouldn’t protect him.”

 

“He’s the scum of the Galaxy, I’m not denying that,” Grendenthwich said. “But that’s irrelevant. His premature death would cause a type 4 paradox, and I cannot allow that.”

 

_ The mirror started to fog up.  _ __   
  


Ade stared at the things approaching them from her position in the mindscape, carefully stepped through the mirror into the physical plane, and ran.

 

“Scum of the -” William looked genuinely hurt. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

 

“I’m on the side of Time Baby and a paradox-free reality, sir,” Grendenthwich said smoothly.

 

_ It is said that if you put a frog in water and heat it slowly enough, you can cook it alive without it noticing. This is utter bollocks and the fact that this is believed says a lot more about people than it does frogs. What is interesting about this is that people, unlike frogs, absolutely will fail to notice a significant temperature change provided they’re emotional enough, even if it’s the sort of detail that they really should be paying attention to. _

 

“I don’t care if it causes a paradox!” Aperture shouted. “I’m going to get my revenge.”

 

“I’m not saying that you can’t have your revenge. I’m just saying you need to wait a little. If you kill him now you will never be born,” Grendenthwich paused. “And for that matter I’m sure we can find a solution that doesn’t literally involve murdering a man. To give one’s firstborn away violates some pretty serious laws. With your testimony we should be able to -”

 

“No! I am going to kill him! I don’t have time to testify. I don’t  _ want _ to testify.  **They** will have me back soon; I can feel  **Their** hounds approach,” she said, completely oblivious to the signs of just how near those hounds were. “I’m going to do this, and it’s going to be now! Who cares if I’m never born? It would probably be for the best: if I was never born then  **They** could never take me.”

 

_ William shivered from the cold breeze that came from the mirror, but, despite living in a climate controlled space ship for several months now, he didn’t give its presence much thought.  _

 

“I care,” Grendenthwich said, softly. “And so should you. You may have been through a terrible ordeal but you’ve made it to the other side. You have your whole life ahead of you, -”

 

“No I don’t!” Aperture shouted. “There’s nothing for me but for  **Them** to take me back! You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

 

_ Large ferns of perfectly shaped frost jutted out from the mirror. Plants withered at the frost’s touch. _

 

Grendenthwich crossed her arms. “I’m pretty sure I do know what I’m talking about, Aperture. Why are you so afraid of  **Them** anyway? Why don’t you just ask your brother for help?”

 

“My brother?” Aperture said, baffled. “I don’t have a brother! And even if I did, what the heck could any brother possibly do against  **Them** ?”

 

“Wait, you don’t know?”

 

_ The fog on the mirror’s surface cleared away with a strong breeze. It no longer reflected the plants and sculptures of the park, instead revealing a blindingly bright snowscape. Massive, unidentifiable statues stood hauntingly across the landscape. Frozen waterfalls hung from the edge of floating islands like pillars. Everything was pristine and white. And, close to the mirror and quickly growing even closer, was a pack of strange creatures. Jagged crystalline limbs in a variety of configurations raced forward, carrying sleek bodies, with no defined heads or tails. At the front of the creatures were bright cyan spots that projected a beam of light ahead of them. _

 

“Know what?” Aperture asked.

 

“You’re the Mizar,” Grendenthwich said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

 

“Oh, I am? Well that just solves everything doesn’t it?”

 

“You have no idea what that means, do you?”

 

“No.”

 

_ The air hummed. _

 

“I means that Alcor’s your brother,” Grendenthwich sighed. “Stars alive, I’m not the best person to explain this. Okay basically -”

 

Grendenthwich’s eyes widened. Something was wrong. She couldn’t talk: she thought the words but her body wouldn’t obey. A severe numbness was spreading throughout her body. It wasn’t tingling that slowly started to fade into feeling nothing, it was like her limbs were shutting off, one by one. 

 

Aperture watched as the person shape that had been talking to her flickered and disappeared, leaving a simple fetish falling into a pile of clothing. 

 

She turned around. The hounds were at the mirror’s barrier, and purposely spread out in the ship’s deck. 

 

She couldn’t breathe. 

 

William was right there. But she didn’t have a weapon. And she couldn’t enter his dreamscape without a doorway, the only one of which she was close to being full of hounds. 

 

She had been so close. 

 

She never should have gone to talk to him. She should have just killed him when she was in his dreamscape in the first place. 

 

The lead hound was facing her, as much as something without a face could. 

 

It went to her, slowly, almost leisurely at first, but picking up speed as it went. 

 

Aperture curled in on herself.

 

She had been so close. 

 

She had almost done it. 

 

But it wasn’t enough. 

 

In the end, she just wasn’t enough. 

 

She was going to go back. 

 

She didn’t want to go back.

 

_ She didn’t want to go back. _

 

She wanted to cause a time paradox and stop existing. 

 

That sounded nice.

 

It wasn’t fair. 

 

The Hound was almost upon her. She practically feel its teeth bite into her very being.

 

There was nowhere to run. 

 

Something materialized out of the air to the side. Something fast. And vaguely sheep-like.

 

Lolanja plowed into the charging Hound, trampling it under her powerful hooves. It didn’t seem fond of the cold iron shoes she had materialized with. Unless it normally shattered as a form of expressing fondness, in which case it seemed to be very fond of them indeed. 

 

That Of Teeth followed her into the material plane. 

 

The other Hounds focus shifted from the changeling child to the new threats. They started to close in. 

 

Lolonja turned to Aperture.

 

**RUN**

 

“N-no! Not until - I’m so close! I have to - I need to kill him first!”

 

The nightmare turned to face the man. He was pressed into the spaceship’s wall, a line of greenery obscuring him from view with about the same effectiveness that thick lace would have had.

 

He cowered back from the nightmare’s stare, pressing his back harder against the smooth wall.  

 

With a single smooth motion, Lalonja reared onto her hind legs and kicked his face in. Then she turned back to the hounds. 

 

Aperture’s eyes widened. 

 

He crumpled. 

  
  


Fell. 

  
  


_ D _

_ i _

_ e _

_ d _

  
  


More commands from the nightmare filled her head, but she didn’t process them.

  
  


He was dead.

  
  


It was supposed to be her. 

  
  


_ It was supposed to be her _ . 

  
  


And now he was dead. 

  
  


She didn’t get to - 

  
  


The world around his body blurred. 

  
  


She was going to be brought back and she didn’t even get to - 

  
  


It wasn’t fair. 

  
  


_ It wasn’t fair. _

  
  


it wasn’t…

  
  


it

 

.

 

.

 

.

  
  
  


It was cold. 

  
  
  


**They** had arrived. 

  
  
  


**They were Beautiful.**

  
  
  


**Lovely.**

  
  
  


**Perfect.**

  
  
  


**And They were going to make her Beautiful.**

  
  
  


**Why had she ever left?**

  
  
  


**Why would anyone leave?**

  
  
  


**Didn’t she want to be Beautiful?**

  
  
  


**Of course she did.**

  
  
  


**Everyone wanted to be Beautiful.**

  
  
  


**She would go back with Them.**

  
  
  


**And she would be punished.**

  
  
  


**Because she made her Liege visit such an Ugly place.**

  
  
  


**But it would be worth the pain.**

  
  
  


**Because then.**

  
  
  


**She would be Beautiful.**

  
  
  
  
  
  


**but…**

  
  
  


**BUT?**

  
  
  


**what if she didn’t want that**

  
  
  


**That was absurd. Of course she wanted to be Beautiful. Everyone wants to be Beautiful. Especially those as Ugly as her.**

  
  
  


**but…**

 

**she....**

  
  
  


**SHE’S MINE**

  
  


This wasn’t right. 

 

THIS WASN’T RIGHT.

 

Aperture took a step back from her Liege. 

 

She felt exhausted. She felt like she had stayed up for two days straight and had something that she desperately needed to do but couldn’t remember what it was. Her mind was searching in vain for something important, some piece of information, and didn’t have any processing power left for thoughts or emotions. 

 

There was something important. 

 

She looked up at her Liege.  **They** were as resplendent, beautiful and terrible as  **They** had always been.  **They** weren’t paying any attention to her. She hated it when  **They** ignored her. Almost as much as she hated it when  **They** paid attention to her. 

 

But it was kinda weird that  **They** weren’t paying attention to her. What else was here that would interest  **Them** ? The material plane was ugly and uninteresting to  **Them** . And  **They** seemed agitated, at least, she thought  **They** did. She never did quite figure out how to determine  **Their** mood. 

 

She turned to look where her Liege appeared to be focusing. 

 

There was that demon again. It was entirely focused on her Liege, deep in communication through some means that didn’t involve something as inefficient as sound. The ground around the two of them was shifting, forming complicated and intricate structures.

 

She was so tired. 

 

She was so very sick of not knowing what was going on.

 

Why were there nightmares following her?

 

What in the galaxy did this powerful demon want with her?

 

What was even going on???

 

There was no way that she was getting out of here. Either the demon would claim her, or, more likely, her Liege would. 

 

Well fine. She was at least going down with some level of understanding about what this all meant.

 

She reached into herself and pulled out the potion that Chiddle made. 

 

The bright, viscous, pink fluid glittered and glowed in the bright lights of the ship. It did not look like something remotely safe to drink. It looked, best case scenario, carcinogenic, and, more probably, like it was literally just melted plastic.

 

She drank it in a single chug. 

 

It was like getting punched in the tongue with a fist covered in boiling honey. Far sweeter than anything should be, and it burned going down. 

 

And for a moment, that was all it did. 

 

Then, she looked at the demon again. Only, he wasn’t just some strange demon. He was her brother. She had known him her whole life. He was always with her, as she explored the places that Mysha took her. 

 

He was Dipper, their friend, who they had known since they became an adult, who had introduced himself by freezing time as their vehicle was about to crash. 

 

And he was Alcor, the spirit who she had brought order back to the world with. 

And he was Dipper, his friend and brother, who was there for him since scaring him as a child. And he was Dad, who kept his demonhood a secret from her for over a decade. And he was her brother, who had never fully stopped being a paranoid dummy about her husband. And he was his brother. And he was her friend. And he was the weirdo that invaded his life and changed everything. And he was their everything. And he was an obstacle in her way. And he was her game master. And he was his source of historical knowledge. And he was the only one that understood. And he was her beloved. And he was. And he was. AND HE WAS. 


	21. Chapter 21

Aperture fell to the ground, curled up in herself, screaming.


	22. Chapter 22

Alcor spun around, letting reality unwarp around him, no longer caring about posturing. 

 

What the hell was that potion?

 

And just as he asked, his omniscience supplied the answer. It gave her knowledge of their interactions in her past lives. Memories of every moment they spent together, in every lifetime, all at once in a mostly physical body. There was no way she would be able to handle it. No human-originated mind could handle that. It would be like the info dumps he used to suffer through as a child, only more so. 

 

He had to reverse its effects. He would probably have to do something to heal her. He had to… 

 

Pain struck him like a needle through the skull.

 

He shouldn’t have turned his attention from the fae. But his sister needed him, and she needed him now. He didn’t have time to play around anymore. If he took any longer to sort this out who knew how damaged her mind might get. She might never recover, not without a deal that she might not have the presence of mind to agree to. 

 

It was then that Aperture stood up, laughing. It was not a normal laugh. It was many frequencies, all at once. It harmonized with itself. It clashed painfully with itself.

 

“Well,” they said in a voice that was many voices all at once. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”


	23. Chapter 23

Adetokunbo floated as fast as she could through the dark and quiet ship. She was tired. She didn’t normally exert herself this much. But she had to save Aperture. She knew how to fix this. She knew what she had to do. She just wished she was better at navigating the ship, who knew what might have happened while she was dashing down pointless hallways. 

 

She had to admit, she was a little surprised. She liked listening to Chiddle’s rambling. They were so cute and animated when they were going off about something, even if she couldn't always follow what they were saying. But she never thought anything that she would have picked up from them would be this important. 

 

She felt the strength of the local mana field swell in front of her, centered at a point just beyond a door ahead of her, emblazoned with warnings. 

 

This was promising. 

 

The door opened easily, and the room beyond it had nothing blocking the large magical generator in the middle of it besides a thick railing, easily floated over. 

 

She had no idea what to do. 

 

She hadn’t really thought ahead this far. 


	24. Chapter 24

“Are you okay?” Alcor asked, which was, perhaps, a bit of a dumb question.

 

He couldn’t look his sister straight on. It made his perception spin. It was physically painful, like looking at the sun for an extended length of time. He was one of the most powerful beings in the universe and he couldn’t look at his sister. It was absurd. 

 

What he could make out visually was… concerning. At their heart, the part he really couldn’t look at, was a million bright sparkling colors, colors that he didn’t have names for despite his millenia of making up names for the colors he could see that humans couldn’t. His sister glowed brightly, lighting up the room in ever-shifting hues. Looking at the edge he could sort of make out Aperture’s shape. He could also make out a human form. The details of the form were vague, like there was a staticy TV rapidly cycling between faces and bodies. Or perhaps a large number of them overlapping each other at a low opacity. It was different every time Alcor got a new look at it. And it was constantly painfully familiar, even in its oddity. There was hair, of many styles all at once. It was standing on end.

 

“Momentarily yes,” they said in their hauntingly familiar voices. “This form isn’t sustainable, though. I could only be part of Mabel because of how she had been changed in the Transcendence. I really was supposed to die with her. I wasn’t supposed to be brought back.”

 

“Right,” Alcor said. He had… forgotten about that part of his first sister. Forgotten about the power of chaos that she had held. The chaos that she was. He wished he couldn’t believe it, but well, it had scared him, and he didn’t like to think about the parts of her that scared him. 

 

He momentarily wondered how much else he had forgotten. How very skewed his mental image of Mabel was. 

 

But he could angst about that some other time. For now he had sometime he had to do.

 

“What do we need to do to reverse this?” He asked.

 

“Nothing,” they said. “I easily have the power to disperse again. It’s actually taking some effort to stay like this.”

 

“Then, why don’t you?”

 

“I just have one little thing I need to do first, brobro.”

 

He felt their gaze shift past him. 

 

They were staring at the fae behind him. The fae looked interested, fascinated, obsessive. But how could  **They** be anything else?  **They** were looking at the most beautiful thing  **They** had ever observed. So beautiful it hurt. More beautiful than  **Them** , perhaps. Nothing was more beautiful than  **They** were, of course, but it was possible this beautiful thing was nothing itself.

 

“It’s made of order. It’s defined by its contracts, by its rules.” Their haunting voice was elated. “I am chaos. I can’t be governed by laws, only have my actions be guessed by probability. And with a will guiding me… We’re going to break every single rule that makes up that awful thing’s being.”

 

It took a moment for Alcor to fully understand what they were saying. 

 

“What‽” He moved forward with his hands slightly raised in front of him. “Mizar... Aperture, no. Fae… they make contracts with reality. Those contracts define the mindscape. Destroying one would have massive consequences; otherwise, believe me, I would have already done it.”

 

They spun and faced him, the full force of their brightness hitting him like a truck. “We don’t care! We don’t care about any of that! That thing… do you have any idea what it did to Aperture? To us?”

 

“I know. I know. And I’m sorry. But you can’t just…”

 

“All this time. All this time she - we - were blaming that pathetic man, for giving us - her - to it. As if it wasn’t the one to do all those awful, awful things! Because she couldn’t do anything about it. Well, now we can do something about it. And it will never hurt us, or anyone else, ever again!”

 

“Aperture, you need to think about this.” Alcor tried shifting out of the light, but it followed him. It burned him. “Take a deep breath, you can’t -”

 

“What do you know‽” they demanded. “How could you possibly understand? She was so young! And we’re never going to be the same ever again! We’re not even recognizable as human -”

 

Alcor laughed.

 

“What could possibly be funny about this‽” they demanded. 

 

“You’re right. I don’t know how I could possibly relate to being tormented by a powerful being as a child before being irrevocably changed into something inhuman. That’s completely outside of my experience.”

 

The burning light that surrounded him lessened slightly. 

 

“Oh. Right. We… forgot. But still, Bill Cipher died! And there were consequences to that, and the world was irrevocably changed, and you know what? It was fine! It worked out!”

 

“People died, Aperture.”

 

“People do that! Aperture deserves some level of respite. She deserves the knowledge that this can never, ever happen again.”

 

“I can protect her.”

 

“Really? ‘Cause you didn’t the first time. She can’t count on you. She can’t relax while this thing still exists.”

 

“Mizar, please think this through -”

 

“We have. And we don’t care. We’re ending this, here and now.”


	25. Chapter 25

Ade looked around desperately. She was taking way too long with this. Who knew if Aperture was even still on the ship. It didn’t matter if she didn’t know what she was doing, she just had to do it at this point. 

There was a bright red lever on the magical generator. 

Ade flipped it.


	26. Chapter 26

Alcor was very surprised to find the magic in the area rapidly running out. He only had a moment to make himself completely physical before there was no longer enough magic left in the room to sustain his presence.

 

The fae was just gone. Without the ability to make itself truly physical it simply evaporated. Mostly it would be fine; there had never been enough magic on the ship to sustain its whole self, so it just sent a sliver of its power, like a limb.

 

“No!” Mizar cried out. They still held onto chaos, a little. Its power was sort of magic, and sort of not. It didn’t follow rules. It was peeling away. “No, no, no, no, no! It can’t disappear! Not now!”

 

Grendenthwich sat up, rubbing her face. She looked at Mizar’s fading splendor. She looked at the pleading Alcor. She looked at William’s dead body.

 

“What the actual fuck is happening?” she asked to no one in particular.

 

“You need to let go,” said Alcor. “It’s gone. There’s nothing you can do now.”

 

“No! We need to make this right!” screamed Mizar.

 

“You need to let go.”

 

“We can’t just let a bunch of eldritch horrors take people for their own twisted purposes just because they’re cornerstones of reality that parts of the universe depends on to function!” she said.

 

“You’re completely right,” Alcor said. “But that doesn’t mean that killing them is the solution.”

 

“Fuck you!”

 

“That’s uncalled for.”

 

Ade floated back into the room hurriedly, sure that Aperture would probably need her help. Passing through the door, she stopped.

 

“Your face is uncalled for,” Mizar said.  


“What the in the everloving heck is even happening here?” Ade whispered to Grendenthwich.

 

Alcor put his palms together. “Look,” he said, and took a deep breath.

 

“I don’t know,” Grendenthwich quietly all but wailed. “I thought I did but I really don’t. He’s dead and I still exist and she’s apparently like, I don’t even know, some kinda god or something??? I stop being sentient for what I’m assuming is five minutes and nothing makes sense anymore.”

 

“And that’s not even mentioning the demon or the nightmares,” said Ade.

 

“What? Alcor?” Grendenthwich asked. “He’s just concerned about his sister, and Lolanja and That of Teeth are just here because he is.”

 

“What?”

 

“You’re right,” said Alcor. “This is a problem. It’s one that I should have done something about a long time ago, I just… There isn’t an easy answer so I think I just let myself think that it was inevitable and the way things have to be. But it’s not. We can work something out together, okay? We can do the Mizar and Alcor thing and find some way to stop the Fae from kidnapping people, and rescue those who have been taken. We just… can’t kill all the Fae. Whole species would die out. It would be like killing the rain to stop hurricanes.”

 

“Okay, but killing _one_ fae…” Mizar pleaded.

 

“No,” Alcor said gentilly. “I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s not fair.”

 

“No, it’s not. But you need to let go. Aperture can’t handle all of you in her head.”

 

“O-okay. Just… promise me you’ll take this seriously. We can’t just let them keep kidnaping people. That’s not an acceptable price to pay for stability.”

 

Alcor grinned. “It’s a deal.”

 

The room filled with colorful flash, and Aperture fell to the ground, merely herself again.

 

“Are you okay?” Alcor asked.

 

“Noooo,” Aperture drawled. “Everything hurts. And my Liege is still out there. And everything is awful.”

 

“What do you still remember?”

 

Aperture pushed herself upright.

 

“I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s very fuzzy. I do know that you’re my brother though.”

 

“Okay, this is some good sibling communication, and I’m real happy it’s happening, but can somebody please explain why I still exist?” Grendenthwich said, staring at the dead body of William. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I am really confused right now.”

 

“Oh yeah,” said Aperture. “I was a little distracted by the fact that one of my regenerations was a god whose power I temporarily held, but shouldn’t we be in paradox territory?”

 

“Why would that be?” Alcor asked.

 

“William, that body with a puddle for a head over there, would have been Aperture’s father. Aperture won’t be born for almost a year from now, so conception hasn’t happened,” Grendenthwich explained.

 

“Oh, that. His death doesn’t matter. He’s a sperm donor.”

 

“He’s a WHAT?” Aperture cried out. “You’re telling me that this man promised his first born to **Them** and - I - what a jerk! What a massive butthole!”

 

“So that means, on top of the rather impressive fact that William is an even bigger dick than I already knew, there was never any risk of a time paradox at all. My presence here was completely uncalled for. Except that, had I not involved myself, Aperture may not have found William at all.” Grendenthwich frowned. “I’m going to have so much paperwork to fill out when this is all said and done.”

 

“So who are you?” Aperture asked. “Like, besides a time cop.”

 

“I’m Katerina Grendenthwich.”

 

“But…” Aperture felt like she had been shaken. “that’s the name that I -”

 

“I know. I’m your husk. I’m truly sorry that I cannot explain more but I don’t want to risk compromising the timestream any further.”

 

“Seriously?” Ade asked. “After everything that just happened you still care about that?”

 

“Caring about that is literally my job. But. You know what? I’ve already screwed up in almost every way I could, why not collect the whole monopoly of mistakes? I’m probably getting in trouble anyway, and your brother is omniscient for all sakes.” Grendenthwich shook her head. “Basically, I think of you as my sister. We spent our teenage years together, or you will spend your teenage years with me… unless you don’t want to?”

 

Aperture was slouched on the floor, hugging her knees.

 

“How could I possibly go back to my parents after all that? I’m broken.”

 

“What? No, no, no, you’re -”

 

“I _am_ though!” Aperture stood up. “I’m terrified, I’m not even human anymore, my brother’s a demon, I caused a man to die today! I know that they wouldn’t have wanted that and I did it anyway. And now he’s just slumped there and he doesn’t even have a head and there’s blood and it’s my fault, I asked for this to happen.”

 

“Hey Alcor,” said Grendenthwich. “Could you please do something about that body?”

 

“Yeah, no problem.” With a snap of his fingers, the body disappeared.

 

“Aperture, please listen to me,” Katerina said, taking Aperture’s hands. “Your parents love you. I’m not saying things are going to be like they were before; you’ve been through a terrible ordeal and things are going to be different from here on out. But mama was pretty different before she met the man that, apparently, wasn’t William, and he was bad for her, and it changed her, but you wouldn’t call her broken, would you?”

 

“No...”

 

“And mother and dad aren’t human either, does that mean that we can’t love them?”

 

“Well, no but -”

 

“And you may have asked for a man to die, and I’ll admit, I don’t think that that was the best way to handle that, but he did something truly awful to you for entirely selfish reasons. You aren’t going to start killing random people, are you?”

 

“No.”

 

“And if we’re going to be real if he hadn’t died here mum probably would have hunted him down herself.”

 

Aperture laughed. “Yeah…”

 

“And I’ll admit, it’s going to take a little for everyone to adjust to the whole demon brother thing. But surprises come up in families and we work through them together. And it’s not your fault that your share the soul that’s a demon’s twin.”

 

“I’m scared,” Aperture said.

 

“It’s okay to be scared,” Katerina said with a small smile, “There’s some big changes coming up, and that’s scary. And I’m not going to say that it’s all going to be okay, because sometimes it won't be. There will be fights, there will be confusion, Lord knows I didn’t handle learning that I was a soulless pseudoclone very well. But we’ll have a each other, we’ll be a family, and overall I’d say it works out.”

 

“Well, make sure to say ‘hi’ to us in the future,” Ade said. “Chiddle’s going to be _dying_ to know how the whole demon brother thing works out.”

 

“Alcor, would you mind taking her back to where she belongs?” asked Katerina. “I’d rather not risk interaction with my past self, and you should probably introduce yourself to the family sooner rather than later.”

 

“Are you going to be okay?” Aperture asked. “With like, your job?”

 

“Yeah,” Katerina said. “It’s a little frustrating that it was a Type 2 stable time loop the whole time, but stable time loops are always the goal. I’ll have a lot of paperwork to fill out, and I might get demoted for involving myself in a personal issue, or for not doing enough research to know that William’s life didn’t really matter, but whatever.”

 

She smiled. “I think we're all going to be fine.”


	27. Chapter 27

“Hey Chidds, you’re never going to believe what you missed out on,” Ade said, flopping onto a couch back at Charshmarsh.

 

“Where did Aperture go? Is she okay?”

 

“She’s beyond okay! She’s home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Thanks to my roommate for Betaing. 
> 
> I got a lot of inspiration from the roleplaying game Changling the Lost, which I would highly recommend if this sort of thing is of interest to you. 
> 
> I'm not planning on posting anything else with these characters, but feel free to drop into my blog (http://beelieveinfandom.tumblr.com/) and ask me shit about them, I had a lot of things planned that didn't make it to the final fic. There will also be art of them, as I realize that they (fucking Aperture) can be a little hard to visualize from my description.


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